Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

08/12 Links Pt2: The ‘Empathy’ Lie and the Erasure of the Hostages; We Will No Longer Tolerate ‘Pay for Slay’; Leaders of terror-linked charity bankroll Democrats

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The ‘Empathy’ Lie and the Erasure of the Hostages

As I explained yesterday, there is no longer any disputing that French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that his country would recognize the “state of Palestine,” in conjunction with his and other European leaders’ one-sided pressure on Israel, sabotaged the cease-fire deal that would have brought 10 living hostages home.

Which means that every leader who followed Macron in announcing a plan to recognize a Palestinian state—Mark Carney of Canada, Albanese of Australia, Keir Starmer of the UK—did so knowing the price that would be paid by the hostages.

The remaining hostages, including those who would have been freed had Europe not intervened on Hamas’s behalf, may not survive. But even those who do survive will be tortured, starved, and likely exposed to sexual mistreatment of one kind or another. Every added day of captivity brings them closer to death through painful and utterly inhuman treatment at the hands of Hamas monsters.

To join in the wave of “Palestine” recognition, knowing this, means several Western leaders have made a calculation: They can live with the deaths of the hostages, even when they are partially on their conscience. Such people may not be Hamasnik monsters themselves, but they are at the very least monster-adjacent.

Furthermore, this whole situation exposes something important about the international community. Those who claim to care for the wellbeing of Palestinians in Gaza are not displaying empathy. They are not displaying generosity of spirit or anything of the kind. They are, as they have explained time and again, acting out of domestic political pressure. That is certainly a legitimate driver of political policymaking, but it is not a display of morality or decency.

Were the “humanitarian” activists to advocate with equal force for the hostages, they might be saved. But the rest of the world doesn’t care, and politics is a numbers game: There simply aren’t enough Jews in these countries. That itself is a vicious cycle, and one the callous cowards of the West are unbothered by as well.

Seth Mandel: Why Israel Is Losing the ‘Propaganda War’

Just as recognizing a Palestinian state does not make a Palestinian state suddenly appear. It may be a boon to the people dressing up as the Palestinian state, though.

Is an NGO or some other nonstate entity a “humanitarian” organization because it calls itself humanitarian? Over the weekend there was some excitement in the anti-Israel world over an open letter written by French self-described experts in international law, which made two pretty wild points: that Israel did not have the legal right of self-defense after Oct. 7, and that Israel’s “genocidal intent” toward Gazans was made clear when someone in Israel proposed a “humanitarian city” for Palestinians civilians that was never actually pursued. I’m sure these folks have university degrees in their chosen industry, but not a single person who signs a letter like this is an “expert” in anything except signing their own name.

The propaganda debate over the war is reminiscent of MSNBC’s Joy Reid once explaining that “The enemy of the far-right, in their own words, are Antifa, meaning anti-fascist. So, they are anti-anti-fascist by their own reckoning.” If you oppose a group called anti-fascist, you are a fascist. Magnify this galactic stupidity by a thousand and you have something like what Israel is facing in the international media.

What if we call the Hamas government’s police forces the “Gaza civil police”? Then the UN can argue its trucks are being guarded by legions of people like Dwight from The Office, who boasted of his status as a Lackawanna County volunteer sheriff’s deputy.

And where do you go when you need some solid medical or hospital information? May I suggest the Gaza Health Ministry? The ministry is not affiliated with Hamas because, as you can see, the word Hamas appears nowhere in its name.

Is there a single person on earth in a position of power and influence who actually believes any of this? Of course not. And that is the problem with the propaganda war. Someone who cites the “Gaza Health Ministry” is not someone who has been fooled by one side; it is someone who has chosen one side. There’s no question at all that Israel could stand to improve its response time in providing the real story behind whatever nonsense is leading, say, the Guardian on any given day. But one must also remember why someone would read the Guardian for its Mideast war reporting in the first place.

Meir Y. Soloveichik: We Will No Longer Tolerate ‘Pay for Slay’

In 2002, Benjamin Blutstein was an American student from New Jersey, studying for a semester at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As he began lunch in the school’s Frank Sinatra Cafeteria, a Hamas-planted bomb blew up, ending his life instantly. He had planned to fly home later that day. Blutstein was one of several Americans murdered in that attack and one of many Americans murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the past 20 years. Several of his murderers sit in Israeli prison—and are to this day given a stipend as reward by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The families of Palestinian “martyrs,” suicide bombers, receive similar sustenance.

It was more than two decades later, this past June, that the Supreme Court addressed the legal rights of Blutstein’s relatives and those of others. The case is technical, focusing on matters abstruse and abstract, but if we pay close attention, we will discover that the jurisprudential debate also makes manifest larger questions relating to American foreign policy, mistakes made over the past years—and the new attitude that must be adopted.

The case, Fuld et al. v. PLO et al., concerns the policy of the Palestinian Authority that is known as “pay for slay,” through which the PA continues to bestow financial rewards on terrorists and their families, thereby incentivizing terrorist acts. Families of murdered Americans like Benjamin Blutstein sued the Palestinian Authority for damages. They relied on the 1990 Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows for verdicts bestowing triple damages to those hurt by international terror. They, in turn, were constantly rebuffed by the courts, which insisted that U.S. law had no jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority.

In response, Congress in 2019 passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, specifically stating that the PA would be deemed to have consented to the jurisdiction of United States law if it maintained a presence in American territory and if it continued its “pay for slay” activities. Because the PA does indeed maintain an office in midtown Manhattan, and because its payments for terror are still ongoing, the families of the victims successfully sued the PA in federal court, achieving a civil verdict of hundreds of millions of dollars.

That decision was overturned by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which deemed it a violation of the PA’s due-process rights because it unfairly imposed the burden of “litigating in a distant or inconvenient forum.” While the PA does have an office in New York, the circuit court argued that aside from its presence at the United Nations, the PA had no right to engage in its activities in the United States; the American government was merely turning a “blind eye” to its activities. The PA could not be deemed to have consented to U.S. jurisdiction unless it received some “reciprocal” benefit for its presence in the country.

08/12 Links Pt1: How Israel Can Defend Itself in the Future; Why Is Reuters Carrying Water for Hamas?; IDF kills five terrorists posing as part of World Central Kitchen

From Ian:

Jonathan Schanzer: How Israel Can Defend Itself in the Future

Israeli grayzone operations are undeniably ramping up as the multi-front war quiets down. But the risk-reward calculus for Israel is now likely to vary from one theater to the next across the Middle East. Striking assets in Lebanon and Syria poses little risk right now. Neither Hezbollah nor the regime of Ahmad al-Shara appears particularly eager to fight.

The Iranian regime, however, may be up for another tussle. Should the IDF conduct operations that cross Iran’s red line—a line that is currently ill-defined—there is real risk of escalation. Interestingly, the main critique of the campaign prior to October 7 was that it was too provocative and risked igniting a major war for minimal gains. That may seem ironic in hindsight, but the risk of provoking another major conflict now is not negligible.

Air strikes on military facilities in response to the Iranian regime renewing its ballistic missile production capabilities could trigger a painful response. The regime maintains the ability to launch ballistic missiles at Israel and to strike with considerable accuracy. The Israelis need to think carefully about how and where they conduct future operations in Iran. Indeed, few Israelis relish the notion of returning to their bomb shelters for extended stays.

A different sort of Israeli campaign is likely necessary, perhaps in tandem with calibrated efforts to prevent the regime from returning to its previous strength. This additional campaign might be one in which Israel supports the Iranian opposition movement and otherwise weakens the regime from within. Psychological, political, diplomatic, economic, and other measures designed to erode the power of the mullahs would be deployed with increasing intensity. The Israelis understand that the regime must not be allowed respite after the drubbing it absorbed in June. More important, such a strategy is crucial because it offers a more enduring and non-kinetic solution to the Islamic Republic’s annihilationist ambitions. The Campaign Between Wars could never offer that.

What the return of the campaign does offer is time, and time is what Israel needs. The pager and walkie-talkie operation that cut down Hezbollah’s commanders took years to execute. The gathering of the intelligence required to take out Hassan Nasrallah in his Beirut bunker was painstaking. The forward operation that launched Israel’s “Rising Lion” campaign in Iran, too, required years of preparation.

Israel has fewer tricks up its sleeve than it had a year ago. Most of its recent feats cannot be repeated. So Israel’s war planners and spies are back to the drawing board. They will need time to prepare for the next round against Iran, not to mention other enemies.

Concurrently, Israel has a few other related long-term projects that will also require time. The reconstruction of Israel’s northern communities destroyed by Hezbollah is one. The rebuilding of the communities in the Gaza envelope is another. The revitalization of the Israeli economy, which has taken a brutal hit, is crucial. The expansion of the country’s defense industrial base is another priority identified by the Israelis, after the Biden administration withheld ordnance in 2024 and offered a glimpse into a potential future in which America does not have Israel’s back. Forestalling major conflict for several years to facilitate these initiatives will be vital for the country’s long-term health. Of course, these initiatives cannot begin until the current war ends.

As my colleague Clifford May often says, in the Middle East, there are no permanent victories, only permanent battles. The rise, fall, and rise of the Campaign Between the Wars reflect this reality. It won’t solve all of Israel’s problems. But keeping Israel’s enemies weak and buying time would constitute a major achievement after the grueling war Israel has endured.

UN-Backed Famine Watchdog Quietly Changed Standards, Easing Way To Declare Famine in Gaza

The U.N.-affiliated watchdog group that recently declared a "worst-case scenario of famine" in Gaza quietly changed one of its key reporting metrics while doing so, making it easier to formally declare that there is a famine in the Hamas-controlled territory.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—a network of Western governments, the United Nations, and nonprofit groups—determined in a July 29 report "the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip," claiming that "mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths." Media outlets like the New York Times, NPR, CNN, and ABC News relied on the IPC report to claim that Israeli policies have led to mass starvation, with the Times stating that "months of severe aid restrictions imposed by Israel on the territory" have caused a famine "across most of Gaza."

Unlike previous IPC reports on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the July report includes a metric—known as mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)—the agency has not historically used to determine whether a famine is taking place. The report also includes a lowered threshold for the proportion of children who must be considered malnourished for the IPC to declare a famine, down to 15 percent from 30 percent.

Aid workers traditionally conduct detailed weight and height measurements to determine whether a child is suffering from acute malnutrition. MUAC, by contrast, consists only of a child's arm circumference, a measurement that can be done more quickly and is considered less precise. In the past, the IPC has declared famine after finding that 30 percent of children in an area are suffering from acute malnutrition using their weight and height measurements. In the recent Gaza report, the IPC said it would declare famine if it found that 15 percent of children were suffering from acute malnutrition using their arm circumference measurement and if the agency found unspecified "evidence of rapidly worsening underlying drivers."

The "pretty big shift" in standards, one veteran aid industry insider told the Washington Free Beacon, suggests the IPC is "lowering the bar, or trying to make it easier for the famine determination to be made."

Why Is Reuters Carrying Water for Hamas?

When it comes to the war in Gaza, how is it that the legacy media always defers to the narrative that benefits Hamas? A recent Reuters story illuminates the problem.

Last month, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) produced an internal analysis tracking reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

According to that report, between October 2023 and May 2025, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance received 156 notifications of “fraud, waste, and abuse notifications” from its NGO partners in Gaza, amounting to a loss of more than $4.6 million. The key finding was that “for all 156 incidents, partners did not provide any information in their incident reports alleging SG [sanctioned group] or FTO [foreign terrorist organization] involvement,” according to a slideshow of the findings obtained by The Free Press.

But when the analysis was leaked to legacy news organizations, they reported something completely different.

In late July, first Reuters and then CNN reported that the analysis “found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.” ABC later reported that USAID “failed to find any evidence” that Hamas “engaged in widespread diversion of assistance.” Those news organizations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

There is a world of difference between “notifications” of aid misuse and actual misuse.

Two sources familiar with USAID and its analysis confirmed that the partners’ failure to report terrorist involvement does not mean there is “no evidence” of theft by Hamas. “The report appears to be wholly reliant on self-reporting by UN agencies and NGOs who are extremely reticent to report Hamas interference out of fear of violent retribution by Hamas,” a senior U.S. official familiar with the USAID report told The Free Press.

When the Reuters story was published, “nobody at the highest levels of the USAID administration had seen the report,” said a senior official at the State Department, which oversees USAID. “It was deliberately and intentionally manufactured. . . and distributed to plant a deliberate false narrative.”

Worse yet, Hamas used Reuters’ framing to fuel accusations of starvation and genocide against the U.S. and Israel. Allegations of theft “were recently refuted by an internal investigation by the United States Agency for International Development, which confirmed the absence of any reports or data indicating the theft of aid by Hamas,” said Izzat al-Rishq, a founding member of Hamas’s politburo, on August 1. “We strongly condemn U.S. President Trump’s reiteration of Israeli allegations and lies accusing Hamas of stealing and selling humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

My work on secularizing Jewish ethics has been incredibly productive lately, but one concept, "sanctity," has always been a major sticking point.

As I started writing my book on Derechology (for the third time!) I started clarifying exactly what "values" mean and then to create a universal list of values that maps surprisingly well across disparate ethical traditions, including Eastern traditions.

One of the values that religious systems share is that of "sanctity." Like Judaism's fundamental concept of "covenant," "sanctity" as a value would appear to be a challenge to secularize.

But the resistance to accept this concept as a value may be a major reason why secular ethics has failed up to now. It turns out that the Western world has already secularized the concept - but we didn't realize it.

The word "sanctity" is loaded. In a secular context, it’s often dismissed as a purely theological concept, a relic of a pre-scientific worldview. But in Judaism, and possibly in other traditions, sanctity isn’t just about "holiness" in a standalone, abstract sense. It's profoundly about boundaries - the separation between the sacred and the profane, between the pure and the impure, between what is holy and what is ordinary. This act of drawing boundaries helps create a coherent moral structure for the entire system. The Hebrew word normally translated as "holy," "kadosh," means separate in some contexts.

This insight gave me an "aha" moment: the secular world has its own, unnamed version of this same principle.

Let's call it Category Integrity.

Category Integrity is the moral obligation to preserve the separation between essential distinctions. It is the principle that the boundaries of core concepts are not infinitely malleable. They are the invisible scaffolding of a functional society. While our society relies on these boundaries, it has never formally named or defended the principle itself as a core ethical tenet.

Every serious field has the idea of category integrity baked in. Journalism intends to separate reporting from opinion. Medicine distinguishes between licensed doctors and self-proclaimed wellness experts. Society distinguishes between civilian and military, citizens and non-citizens, minors and adults. The idea of changing the distinction between married and unmarried, no matter what your own position on the topic, is really about maintaining that category and its role within the social structure.

By reframing "sanctity" in this way, we can see that this isn't a religious concept at all. It's a functional necessity for any coherent system, from a legal code to the scientific method.

Once you name this principle, its absence becomes glaringly obvious. Many of our modern societal crises are not a result of bad values, but the absence of this one. When journalism blurs into propaganda, when university teachers turn into activists, when medical practitioners refuse to treat some patients based on their religious or political views, when judges turn into lawmakers, when conflict of interest is considered just another valid choice, when animal rights are elevated to the same level as human rights, the very foundations of a moral society get shaken.

Post-enlightenment philosophy acted like religious concepts were allergens, and it kept the idea of sanctity far away from its attempts to create a secular moral system. This blind spot may be one of the reasons for the cracks we are seeing in an increasingly secular society. Sanctity is not a purely religious concept - it is the basis for the idea of treating different categories of everything differently.

Secular ethics has been so focused on situational harm (consequentialism) and individual rights (deontology) that it has completely missed the meta-level harm of structural decay. It has been debating the morality of individual actions while the invisible scaffolding that holds the entire moral picture together has been crumbling.

Judaism and other religious traditions already have this principle baked into their foundations: man/woman, child/adult, believer/non-believer, cleric/non-cleric, married/single, weekday/Sabbath, house of worship/non-sacred space. By translating "sanctity as separation" into "Category Integrity," we not only find a way to secularize a key religious concept, but we also give modern secular ethics a powerful new tool. It allows us to better understand and defend the fundamental distinctions that make a just and functional society possible.

And it gives us a way to diagnose when things start to go wrong.

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How Western Leaders Twist International Law to Invent a Palestinian State (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

As if to illustrate the saying "fools rush in..." Australia announced this week that it will join France, Great Britain, and Canada in recognizing a Palestinian state during the UN General Assembly’s annual session next month:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said on Monday that the move was “part of a coordinated global effort building momentum for a two-state solution.”

He said Australia’s recognition would be “predicated” on “detailed and significant” commitments he had received from the Palestinian Authority’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to demilitarize, hold general elections and ensure that Hamas plays no role in a future Palestinian state.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Like the others, Albanese also claimed that he had the commitment and support of Abbas to make this work, or--in the case of Great Britain's prime minister--an outright ultimatum to Israel:

* Australia's Albanese claims to have commitments from Abbas to demilitarize, hold general elections, and ensure that Hamas plays no role in a future Palestinian state. (As if Abbas has the wherewithal to remove Hamas from the equation in Gaza.)

* Canada's Carney conditions recognition on Palestinian political reform, Hamas’s exclusion from Palestinian elections, and a demilitarized state. (But who is he expecting to guarantee that Hamas has no further role in Gaza--let alone in the West Bank, where Hamas has significant influence?)

* France's Macron promises recognition, with a mere reminder to Abbas of his commitments to reform. (Not surprisingly, Secretary of State Rubio revealed last Friday that “Talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize the Palestinian state.")

* Great Britain's Starmer frames the recognition of a Palestinian state as an outright threat--against Israel. He claims he will withdraw that recognition if Israel takes “substantive steps” to remedy Gaza’s “appalling situation,” agrees to a cease-fire, and commits to peace. (He demands none of these things of Hamas.)

Recently, international lawyer Natasha Hausdorff critiqued Starmer's decision in an interview with Patrick Christy on GBNews Online. She debunked Starmer's claim that Palestinian Arabs have an "inalienable right" to a state. It is a criticism that applies to Starmer's buddies as well:

You cannot will a state into existence. And it's important to state that Keir Starmer is wrong, absolutely wrong on the international law when he talks about a supposed "inalienable right" of the Palestinians to a state. There is no such thing. If there was a right to statehood under international law, the Kurds would have a state. There'd be many hundreds more states.

In a second interview, Hausdorff addressed two legal problems that are less often discussed. First of all, granting a state to the Palestinian Arabs is, by its very nature, an attack on Israel's sovereignty. Both Gaza and "Yehuda & Shomron" were initially part of the British Mandate. Their conquest by Egypt and Jordan was not accepted as legal by the international community. (Keep in mind that the off-handed way Starmer and others suggest acknowledging a Palestinian state leaves the status of East Jerusalem--and by extension the Kotel--in doubt.)

She adds:

[I]t would also fly completely in the face of the Oslo accords, which the United Kingdom endorsed, as did many other international players. [It] provided very clearly that after certain territory was given to the Palestinian authority to have an autonomy given by Israel, that any change to borders or any change to the status of the territory would only arise from a bilateral negotiated final status settlement. That piece of paper that the UK endorsed is simply being torn up as a result of these proposals for recognition. And it leaves us with a very difficult position where Israel's not going to be in a position to trust any agreement it enters with international backing and international guarantees if it can be so readily thrown out of the window.

Hausdorff is not alone in pointing out how the decision to recognize a Palestinian state violates international law. The British jurist Malcolm Shaw KC points out that the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States identifies the four basic requirements for statehood:

o A permanent population.
o  A defined territory.
o  A government.
o  The capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Of these four requirements, the proposed Palestinian state only meets the first requirement. In their rush to recognize a state, world leaders are ignoring the failure of 3 basic conditions necessary for a sovereign state. Shaw notes:

o  “its territorial extent is undetermined”
o  “there is no effective single government authority over the whole of the territory”
o  “the capacity of the [Palestinian Authority] to conduct formal legal relations with other entities, including States, is hampered by the terms of the Oslo Accords, which [are] still binding upon the parties.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry put it another way, noting that these leaders are advocating the recognition of “an entity with no agreed borders, no single government in effective control of its territory, and no demonstrated capacity to live in peace with its neighbors.”

One can understand how Great Britain and France cannot help themselves. Not so long ago, they were significant colonial powers that saw the Middle East as their playground. But one would have thought that Canada and Australia, with their history, would understand the folly of playing games with other people's states.

But who knows, maybe this call for recognition is a con?

Maybe these politicians calling for a state actually understand that their calls for a Palestinian state are filled with legal hot air--and are patting themselves on the back on how they are cleverly mollifying their citizens. But in the process, they are encouraging Hamas terrorists and delaying the very resolution of this war they loudly claim to be working for.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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The "occupy Gaza" gambit may be paying off

Last week, I floated the idea that Netanyahu's plan to re-occupy Gaza might have been a Trumpian negotiation ploy to get a better deal from Hamas. The risk/reward ratio did not make sense otherwise, and Netanyahu is no fool. He has never shown the slightest interest in entering Israel in a permanent Vietnam-style quagmire; every decision made since the start of the war was meant for victory, and the world put constraints on (like not allowing refugees to flee or insisting on prioritizing aid in an active war zone, which is unprecedented) which has kept it going for this long. The Hezbollah and Iranian battles are far more his style.

But in true Trump fashion, Bibi called up reserves, announced an immediate plan to occupy Gaza City, and used the world's antipathy to him as a means to make a very risky plan sound like something he would really do even though his history shows that he is a much more cautious player than his rhetoric implies. And he has used that to his advantage in the past, both domestically and internationally.

The stated plan to occupy Gaza opens up the field to allow a worse outcome for Gaza than had been seen as a possibility the week before.

If it was a gambit, it looks like it may be paying off. Times of Israel writes:

Sky News in Arabic reports that Hamas negotiators are being presented with a new Gaza ceasefire proposal put together by Egypt and Qatar, with Turkish help, which would include an end to the war and the release of all hostages.

According to the report, the deal would see all hostages living and dead released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while Israel would pull its military back “under Arab-American supervision” until an agreement is reached regarding disarming Hamas and its exit from governing Gaza.

During the interim phase, Turkey and other mediators would guarantee that Hamas freeze any military activities, allowing for talks on a permanent end to the war.

The last sentence is the key:

Sky News presents the proposal as designed to “strip any excuse for occupying Gaza from [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The Arab world is convinced - against all evidence and logic - that Israel plans to conquer everything from the Nile to the Euphrates. Turkish media and leaders also routinely say that they are in Israel's expansionist crosshairs as well. When Israel says it plans to occupy what they consider Arab land, they believe it.

Netanyahu uses their own antisemitism to Israel's advantage.

It is too early to say how Hamas will respond, but last week all the momentum was on Hamas' side - Western nations recognizing "Palestine" without putting any conditions on this recognition was the biggest political victory possible and it gave Hamas no incentive to make any concessions on hostages or its military control of Gaza.

Bibi's plan changed the calculus completely: it added a downside for Hamas that simply didn't exist before.

And while Hamas might want to tough it out, its sponsors are not as keen on risking "Greater Israel."

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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Palestinian leaders consider all journalists to be part of the "resistance." So do the journalists themselves.

Once again, the world is going crazy over Israel assassinating a Hamas member who was also a "journalist."

Beyond the many Hamas terrorists who moonlight in other jobs, there is another dimension to this:

Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas look at journalism as a means of "resistance." There is no differentiation between journalism and propaganda - in their own words.

The Palestinian Ministry of Information has, in the past, threatened any Arab journalists who meet with Israelis and report on what they say.

They held a conference in 2009 telling journalists what terminology to use:

Israeli term	Palestinian Arab term
(Palestinian) Terror	Resistance
(Palestinian) Terrorist	Resistance member
Suicide (bombing) operations	Martyrdom-seeking operations
Palestinian violence	Legitimate resistance
Palestinian who was killed	Martyr (Shahid)

The Minister of Information said at that conference:

The media, through its various means, has played and continues to play a major role in shaping human awareness and crystallizing the positions of groups, organizations, and individuals on the issues raised for discussion and debate.

In our Arab case, the media constitutes a pivotal dimension in the Arab-Israeli conflict and a strategic goal for winning the round before achieving victory on the ground...The media must recognize this hurtful paradox and work to establish a language befitting our people's fighters and the achievements of our movement.

Earlier this year, a similar conference was held in Istanbul recommending what language journalists should use.

In 2022, Gaza photojournalist Hosam Salem was let go from his New York Times contract after Honest Reporting publicized that he praised terror attacks. He wrote in response that he indeed supports Palestinian "resistance," and so do all other Palestinian journalists.

In 2023, Israel killed an armed Al Aqsa Brigades terrorist, Ahmed Abu Junaid, whose death was celebrated. He was in journalism school at the time.

The UN has trained hundreds of Palestinian journalists, for free. Those journalists often say that they consider their journalism to be a form of "resistance."

The word "journalist" has a different meaning for Palestinians than for Westerners. Which is why you do not see any dissenting voices in Palestinian media.

They are pro-terror propagandists, not journalists.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/11 Links Pt2: Europe Is Losing a War Against Reality; Hamas Is Winning the Culture War; Israel kills a terrorist and the British media goes into mourning

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Europe Is Losing a War Against Reality

The hostages who would have been released during that cease-fire may not survive to the next, and Macron (and to some extent other European leaders, including Starmer) may have abetted their murder. So why did he do it? Reports the Times:

“Mr. Macron told [German Chancellor Friedrich] Merz that he was under immense pressure at home and would most likely recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations in late September.… The next day, without telling the Germans, Mr. Macron announced his decision publicly.”

Behind the scenes, Merz was playing a delicate role. He has far more affection for the Jewish state and the wider Jewish world than either Macron or Starmer or nearly any other Western leader save Donald Trump. Alone among the three, Merz has a genuine desire to see the state of Israel survive. But he is also quite critical of Israeli policy of late and suspended some weapons sales after Israel’s announcement that it would pursue Hamas into Gaza City.

Macron acted out of panic and fear. He is not the only world leader under pressure to throw Israel under the bus, but he is a uniquely weak-willed one.

Merz, too, wants to see the establishment of a Palestinian state. But he is of sound mind, and he wanted to approach such a radical change with tact and caution and a sense of the long-term implications. When Starmer went public with his intent to follow Macron on a Palestinian state, the Times reports, Merz was less than pleased:

“Mr. Starmer’s announcement surprised the Germans. They already viewed Mr. Macron’s announcement as counterproductive, hardening Israel’s tone and Hamas’s stance in cease-fire negotiations in Qatar, which had collapsed.”

Events had taken place exactly as Marco Rubio said they did. The one thing everyone can agree on is that Macron did great damage to cease-fire efforts.

Thus we have a rare moment when the truth has emerged from the shadows: France’s announcement of its recognition of a Palestinian state sabotaged peace, prolonged the war, and may have signed the death warrants of Israeli hostages in Gaza. It is a moment that should be taught in international relations courses for decades to come; a cautionary tale.

The Times piece also contains an unintentionally revealing (and humorous) sentence: “Given its Nazi history and its status as one of Israel’s most important allies, Germany had always been unlikely to recognize a Palestinian state before it was established.”

Here’s another way of saying that Germany was unlikely to pretend that something existed until it existed. This sets it apart from France and Britain, and a growing list of Western countries which insist on going to war against reality.

Hamas Is Winning the Culture War

Go visit a public park in Birmingham or London or attempt to buy lunch in downtown Athens or Malmö, and it’s obvious that Europe is dying—its native populations, folkways, religions, and languages being replaced by people whose relationship with their host countries is marked most loudly by resentment, mixed with contempt. Terrified European elites, presiding over shrinking populations and dwindling resources, know no other way but to submit, while justifying their submission through ever-more elaborate rituals of pretense and denial.

Israel has no such privilege. To survive, it has just one path forward. First, it must realize that as land and humiliation are the only two viable currencies in the Middle East, it must reoccupy Gaza, reviving President Trump’s proposal to relocate the strip’s inhabitants to Egypt, the Gulf states, Ireland, France, and wherever else desires to take them. Relocation of populations as the result of war is not a barbaric offense practiced only by Nazis, as opponents shout; it is the common outcome of nearly every war in history. If shipping Gazans out of Gaza as a consequence of their defeat is somehow Nazi-like, then the list of Nazi states on the planet is long indeed: China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Austria, and France, for starters. The United States sent hundreds of thousands of Loyalists fleeing to Canada in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, and not a single one has yet received compensation for their losses. That’s war.

Second, Israel must reject any notion of a future settlement that is absent a complete and total Palestinian surrender, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank as well. A Palestinian state is not the answer to the problems of either Jews or Arabs. It is a way for the world to guarantee a violent and bloody future for everyone in the region, by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat for Hamas. History has been very clear in its verdict that there is room at best for one state between the river and the sea, as the Palestinians and their Western partisans like to put it. Any sane person deciding between the existence of the State of Israel, a technologically advanced liberal democracy as well as the region’s leading military power, and the various Palestinian principalities that owe their existence to outside charity, should have an easy time deciding which state that should be. If your answer is Palestine, then you are either an Islamist or a nihilist. Either way, your values are not mine—especially given the scale of the murdering that your answer supposes, and the human desert that you propose to build on the resulting pile of bones.

Third, Israel must resist the enormous pressure that will result from European capitals, because the pressure is precisely the point. Britain is already facing a bubbling revolt of citizens enraged by decades-long concealment of Pakistani grooming gangs raping hundreds of defenseless young women, as well as by an even more insidious effort to arrest and silence people who point out the obvious on social media. The more vocal and violent the anti-Israel revolt in Europe grows, the more likely it is to force the continent’s feckless leadership into a reckoning that their policy of welcoming migrants is about to backfire in a very painful way.

It is the hope of European elites that by throwing Israel over the side of the ship, they might buy themselves perhaps another decade or two of relative social peace, during which they can believe whatever they want about human nature while eating gobs of Nutella. I believe these comforting assumptions about the efficacy of sacrificing the Jews will be a mistake for them. Either way, Israel can’t be part of it. Dying for Europe’s delusions of how it might buy peace with its own barbarians was the unavoidable fate of European Jews during World War II, an experience that made the necessity of a Jewish state clear to every sentient Jew and sympathetic or guilt-driven Western person on the planet. I am sad to say that our own century’s barbarians show no signs of being any friendlier to Jews than their European predecessors were.

Thankfully, having a state means that Jews are no longer compelled to sacrifice ourselves for the convenience of Europeans or the global left or deluded right-wing American podcasters or The New York Times or anyone else. Every other consequence of our national existence, however brutal or bloody, is painfully small by comparison.

Mike Huckabee, Yehuda Kaploun and Mark Walker: Silence is complicity

Peace cannot coexist with terrorism. So long as Hamas holds power, Gaza’s people will remain imprisoned by violence. Every moment they remain in control is another moment justice and stability are denied to Gazan and Israeli civilians.

In stark contrast to the silence and moral ambiguity of many global leaders, figures like President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have shown bold clarity. They stand firm in rejecting Hamas’s legitimacy, demand the immediate release of all hostages, alive and dead, and refuse to soften their stance in the face of terror. Their leadership exemplifies what the moment demands: moral clarity and unwavering resolve.

Too many world leaders, obsessed with political calculation, have failed to act. This silence is not neutrality, it’s complicity.

This moment requires more than just political will. We call on religious leaders of all faiths—Pope Leo XIV, Muslim leaders, evangelical pastors, Jewish figures and others—to come together in shared outrage and shared purpose. The hostages are not political pawns; they are human beings whose lives hang in the balance.

Humanitarian organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent must be empowered to deliver aid, food, medicine and other essentials to those suffering in captivity. This is not a regional issue; it’s a human-rights crisis that demands a global response. Neutrality in the face of evil is not virtue; it is surrender.

Have we become so desensitized that images of tortured civilians and terrorized families no longer move us to action? The world’s silence is deafening. We must ask ourselves: If not now, when? If not us, who?

We are standing at a moral crossroads. To ignore what is happening in Gaza, to look away from the true nature of Hamas, is to forsake our shared humanity. The real truths are not buried in policy papers or press releases; they live in the faces of the victims, in the voices of grieving families and in the hollow eyes of hostages still waiting for rescue.

Every day we delay, every moment of hesitation allows more suffering. The cost of inaction is measured in lives lost, dignity denied and a future destroyed. We must stand united, not as political factions, but as human beings. Against Hamas and for the innocent.

The real truth is this: We must not allow Hamas lies to become truths.

08/11 Links Pt1: The Mirage of Palestinian Statehood; The Rules Only Israel Has to Follow; Why Does Gaza have so many Hospitals?; Doubts Over Viral Story Of Boy Killed At GHF Site

From Ian:

The Mirage of Palestinian Statehood

Here there is no avoiding the brute fact that there is no independent Palestine to recognize. Its territory is divided across the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with Israel wedged in between. Gaza has been reduced to ruins and its population depleted, uprooted, and displaced, while the West Bank is honeycombed with Israeli settlements and infrastructure defended by Israeli arms. Insofar as there is any Palestinian authority left in Gaza, it is the remnants of Hamas cowering in underground tunnels beneath the apocalyptic ruination above. Having destroyed Hamas as a military force, the Israeli government is now contemplating reoccupying the Gaza Strip in its entirety.

To extend diplomatic recognition to Palestine in such circumstances is worse than a mistake; it is to trade in illusions, to offer Palestinians the mirage of statehood. Palestinian delegates will get to participate in international fora, attend international conferences, exchange diplomatic pleasantries, and enjoy the hospitality at international conferences. It will do nothing for ordinary Palestinians. It will not prevent the Israeli occupation of Gaza nor end the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It will not result in independent institutions of self-government, nor will it enhance state capacity in the occupied territories. Nor will it provide relief or restore functioning public services.

What is worse, this mirage of statehood will encourage Palestinians to evade the reality of their military and strategic defeat at the hands of Israel. Middle class protestors on Western campuses can afford to indulge in political moralism; such idealism is suicidal for the cause of Palestinian independence. Western states have their own, mostly cynical reasons to extend recognition to Palestine in order to placate vocal Muslim minorities and undercut the radical left. Whatever violence may or may not be legitimate in establishing national independence, we can be sure that violence that establishes fictional states—states whose only existence is on the NGO conference circuit—is not only morally reprehensible but also politically futile.

What does recognizing Palestinian state mean, and does it change anything on the ground?

That being said, even if Canada, the UK, France, Australia, and potentially others choose to go ahead and recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly next month, what, if anything, will change on the ground?

International recognition of a Palestinian state does not automatically lead to the state’s creation.

There are still no internationally-agreed upon borders, no capital city, no army, and no set government. Gaza is in the middle of a war, and there is yet to be discussion on significant minutiae such as land swaps, what happens to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, what happens to Israeli Arabs, and the like.

Recognition is mostly symbolic. It is not an order or a plan. If anything, it is designed to put pressure on Israel to end the war and to ramp up humanitarian aid provision to the Strip.

This was made evident in UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s July 29 speech in which he said that the recognition of a Palestinian state would go ahead “unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agrees to a ceasefire, and commits to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.”

In other words, recognition – at least on the UK’s part – is a bargaining chip for cajoling Israel into acting in line with international consensus on how the war should be carried out.

International law regarding the creation of a state is generally based on the Montevideo Convention of 1933. This lists four specific criteria in order for something to qualify as a state.

First, it must have a permanent population. Second, it must have a defined territory. Third, a government. And fourth, the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Palestine does not necessarily meet all of these four criteria. While it is generally considered to have a permanent population, it doesn’t have a stable government (the Palestinian Authority has only limited control over the West Bank and no control over Gaza) and has disputed borders.

As the Israel Democracy Institute recently explained, the traditional position in international law is that a state either exists, or it does not: “If it does not meet the factual conditions for statehood, recognition of it has no meaning.”

Additionally, Article 10 of the Montevideo Convention states that “The primary interest of states is the conservation of peace. Differences of any nature that arise between them should be settled by recognized peaceful methods.”

Critics have argued that this will not be upheld by a future Palestinian state.

Amb. Alan Baker: In recognizing Palestinian statehood, Canada has betrayed Israel

Palestinians' empty commitments
• In predicating his intention to recognize a “State of Palestine” on “the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms, including… commitments to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state,” the prime minister is surely fully aware of the fact that Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas made the same commitments in the Oslo Accords, commitments that to this day have not been realized and have been continuously violated, together with most of the Palestinian commitments in those accords.

In welcoming Abbas’s “renewed commitment to these reforms,” Carney is knowingly deceiving both himself and the Canadian people by paying valueless lip service to empty commitments that no leader of the Palestinian Authority is able and genuinely willing to implement.

Canada’s empty commitments
• In informing the president of the Palestinian Authority that Canada will “increase its efforts to promote peace and stability in the region, and work closely with regional allies toward this goal,” Carney is voicing a totally empty, meaningless, and misleading commitment.

Joining such regional allies as France, Russia, the UK, Norway, Ireland, Spain, and others – in ganging-up against Israel in the United Nations and unilaterally recognizing a non-existent Palestinian state – undermines the Oslo Accords – and the Palestinian commitment to negotiated resolution of the conflict. It also undermines the obligation of the very states that signed the Oslo Accords as witnesses to maintain the integrity of the accords.

As such, the prime minister’s promise to Mahmoud Abbas is the very antithesis of promoting peace. It encourages the Hamas terrorist leadership and their PA partners in their stubborn refusal to free the Israeli hostages, and in their determination to continue their terror campaign against the Jewish state. And it encourages the other states in the UN, as well as the international public, in their continued hostility to Israel and their overall antisemitism.

With this irresponsible statement, as well as the policies that it describes, Carney has blatantly abandoned Canada’s traditional support for Israel – a support that has consistently been based on a solid commonality of political, security, economic, and cultural interests between Ottawa and Jerusalem.

Indeed, former prime minister Stephen Harper declared in 2014 in the Knesset that Canada will always have Israel’s back: “Through fire and water, Canada will stand with you.”

Regrettably, and to the contrary, Canada under Prime Minister Carney – and his predecessor Justin Trudeau – has stabbed Israel in its back and continues to do so.

One may ask if this ill-advised policy really serves the genuine interests of Canada, its society, and people. This begs the question of whether the damage that has been caused will ever be repaired.

The UJA Federation of New York wrote something surprising:

UJA’s longtime partner IsraAID — Israel’s largest nongovernmental humanitarian aid organization — has been extending critical relief inside Gaza, already reaching more than 100,000 Gazans.

Before October 7, IsraAID’s work focused entirely on global natural disasters and conflicts beyond its borders — arriving under the Israeli flag to offer lifesaving aid after earthquakes, floods, wildfires, epidemics, and displacement. They were, for example, central partners in our Ukraine crisis response.

After October 7, for the first time, they used their hard-earned expertise to meet needs across Israel.

And now, they’ve turned to Gaza, where they’ve built deep working relationships with the IDF unit responsible for aid in Gaza (COGAT), as well as highly reputable global aid organizations on the ground, positioning them to ensure the effective delivery of relief.

This week, we allocated $1 million to IsraAID to support their efforts in Gaza, specifically to provide food, medicine, and the installation of filtration systems to enable safe drinking water for displaced families.

IsraAID represents the very best of Israel — and of us.

Gazans definitely require aid. That being said, I am not so sure if it makes any sense for Jews to be providing that aid.

I am willing to give IsraAID the benefit of the doubt. I am willing to believe that they came up with a mechanism, together with COGAT, to provide aid directly to Gazans who need it in such a way that Hamas does not have a chance to steal or hijack the aid. .

IsraAID, probably for political reasons, says nothing about its aid to Gazans on its website. But I found an article on eJewishPhilanthropy where IsraAID's CEO Yotam Polizer discusses what the NGO has been doing.

For over a year and a half, the Israeli humanitarian relief group IsraAid has been quietly providing assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, first by serving as an adviser and go-between, helping international aid organizations coordinate with the Israeli government and military. In recent months, this has increased to more direct assistance by creating a logistics hub for partners on the ground.

JAG: The obvious question is how you ensure that this aid and assistance doesn’t make its way to Hamas or other terrorist groups.

YP: Honestly, there’s no perfect solution in such a condensed war area, where Hamas is embedded within the population. But what we do know works better than anything else is close coordination and communication. And it goes back to the vetting process, making sure basically that all of these partners do not have team members affiliated with Hamas, making sure that everything they bring is scanned properly.

Also, Israeli policies have changed during this war. In the beginning, the declared policy of the government was that nothing would come in from Israel. And then Israel opened its crossings, and now the preferred route is to bring aid from Israel into Gaza.

At some point, we also realized that we should work on a higher level, too. During the ceasefire [in January and February], Israel agreed to allow 600 trucks into Gaza each day. And I remember, we worked in close coordination with the IDF to make that happen together with the U.N. and the many other aid organizations. And I know we all hear about the toxic relationship between Israel and the U.N., but I can tell that I saw that it was a very productive collaboration on that mission.

Politzer says that other Israeli NGOs are getting involved, and he thinks that the many Israeli Arab doctors can play a role in a future Gaza.

He also says that IsraAID is involved in aid for Druze in Syria and also in other Arab countries he cannot name.

Things in Gaza are bad - not as bad as the NGOs and media are saying, but still bad. It is Hamas' fault. I can understand how organizations do not want to abandon Gazans, and also how IsraAID is uniquely qualified to help other aid organizations work more effectively in Gaza.

But there is always a political aspect to aid, and IsraAID giving aid to hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa or potential Abraham Accords partners would probably gain more goodwill for Israel than anything they can possibly do in Gaza. I know that aid shouldn't be conditional on a "thank you" but it could be prioritized on that.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

From the Prime Minister of Australia:

Australia will recognise the State of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, to contribute to international momentum towards a two-state solution, a ceasefire in Gaza and release of the hostages.

How does this work. How does recognition of "Palestine" contribute to a ceasefire in Gaza? How does it help release hostages?

It does the opposite. It makes Hamas more intransigent and it gives them much less incentive to release hostages. It is like saying "I will accept alchemy as a science because that will allow me to manufacture gold from inexpensive chemicals." Declaring it doesn't make it true.

Since 1947, Australia has supported Israel’s existence. In that year, Australia’s Foreign Minister Evatt chaired the UN committee that recommended the creation of two states side by side.

Then, as now, the international community understood a two-state solution was the basis of peace and security for the peoples of the region.

Australia was the first country to raise its hand at the United Nations in support of Resolution 181, to create the State of Israel – and a Palestinian state.

More than 77 years later, the world can no longer wait for the implementation of that Resolution to be negotiated between the parties.

What happened in 1947? The Palestinian Arabs rejected the deal. They rejected statehood. Between the partition and 1948, they didn't do anything to build an Arab state in Palestine. Between 1948 and 1967, they didn't do anything to achieve independence from Jordan and Egypt. Since 2000, they rejected numerous offers for statehood.

Israel didn't stand in the way - the Palestinian leadership did.

What more does the world need to realize that Palestinians never wanted a state of their own, except as a means to destroy Israel? How many billions has Europe spent to help Palestinian governance - and what has it accomplished beyond a kleptocracy? If Palestinians wanted a state for their people to be free, why do they insist that they have the "right of return" to Israel where they would supposedly be second class citizens?

Most importantly, why is no one in the West asking these quite basic questions?

Hamas continues to damage the prospects of a two-state solution and rejects Israel’s right to exist. Hamas must release the hostages cruelly taken on October 7, 2023 immediately, unconditionally and with dignity. The Australian Government has consistently made clear there can be no role for Hamas in a Palestinian state.

OK, great. Now, presumably, the Palestinian state would be a democracy. What does Australia do when Hamas wins the elections? Because it has consistently outpolled Fatah in every poll since October 7 (as well as before.) Is democracy no longer a value?

This is what happens when wishful thinking and groupthink defeat actual thinking. The world is saying "things are bad, maybe this will solve it" without even considering "maybe this will not only make things worse, but the decisions we make today cannot be undone."

It is idiocy and will promote terror, but the only people who will be murdered initially as a result of these decisions are Jews, and who cares about them?

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

At the end of July, I and others reported that according to UN figures, some 85% of aid to Gaza - by weight - was being stolen by armed gangs, Hamas or "hungry people."

Unusually, the story actually was picked up and published by various media outlets.

So one would expect the UN would have done something to better protect these shipments, right?

On the contrary. The problem is getting worse.

While the NGOs are starting to pick up aid that has been sitting at collection points - for the past two weeks, it collected more aid than entered Gaza - the percentage of aid collected that gets looted has been increasing.

According to UNOPS data. for the week ending August 3, 94% of the aid was stolen.

For the week ending August 10, 96% of the aid was stolen.

That's not all that the UN has not been telling us. For the first two weeks in June, 100% of all aid shipments picked up by NGOs to be distributed were looted. That was 838 tons of aid for the week starting June 2, and 4,104 tons for the week of June 9 - every bit of it stolen.

For months, the IDF's COGAT unit has insisted that enough food was being imported into Gaza to feed everyone. For months, the UN insisted that not enough was reaching the people. They were both right - but the UN hid the fact that this was all because of its own incompetence.

And the media treated COGAT like they were the liars.

But this is worse than that. The UN's silence on the aid distribution problem hints at a much darker motive: it prefers that the world attack Israel than ensuring that Gazans get the food they need.

After all, the much criticized Gaza Humanitarian Foundation offered to the UN to secure its aid shipments - and the UN refused. pretending that there was a principle involved in not cooperating with a militarized force. Yet the UN cooperated with Hamas for years.

When the UN insists that more aid is needed, and it knows that nearly all of it will go to Hamas and other armed gangs, it is making a decision to fund Hamas and encourage theft. The NGOs are saying that they prefer the propaganda victory of accusing Israel of withholding food to actually delivering the food that they are responsible for.

The entire point of aid is to give it to those who need it most - women, children, the injured, the poor. The UN and NGOs are making a conscious decision that they prefer a lawless Gaza where the food is stolen and sold only to those who can fund these terrorists, or given freely to those who join terror groups - fighting age men.

These "humanitarians," in their hate for Israel, prioritize the anti-Israel "starvation as a weapon of war" and "genocide" propaganda over helping hungry Gazans. And the more pressure they put on Israel to increase the amount of aid without doing a thing to secure it, the more they encourage Hamas to steal the aid.

The numbers don't lie. The UN and NGOs are not even trying to ensure that the food they bring in reaches those who need it. They cannot be considered humanitarian when their actions are enabling and rewarding terror, violence, extortion, theft, and keeping food out of the hands of the people who are at the greatest risk.

The UN and NGOs are part of an assembly line to bring in aid and give it to terrorists.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Hezbollah becoming politically isolated within and outside Lebanon

Hezbollah has been losing support of its political allies in Lebanon.

L'Orient Today notes that Hezbollah has been criticizing Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, even though the Saudis are the ones who are most likely to spend the billions needed to rebuild Lebanon. The reason?

But according to political scientist Karim Bitar, what particularly troubles Hezbollah is “the pressure the kingdom is putting on the last remaining allies of the party,” namely Faisal Karameh and the Frangieh family. Both had aligned with the “Resistance” for years but have now begun to distance themselves — a real blow to Hezbollah after the gradual withdrawal of support from the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).

A year ago, the Hezbollah bloc controlled 53 seats in Lebanon's 120 seat parliament. Today, it appears to be down to about 29, with some reported frictions with its main secular ally Amal that would cut that number in half if they split.

So it isn't that Hezbollah has lost some of its military power, but also it has lost much of its political power as well.

There is further anger in Lebanon because six soldiers were killed trying to dismantle an explosive device in a Hezbollah weapons depot in southern Lebanon last week.

The "strong horse" theory seems pretty compelling in Lebanon, and Hezbollah's influence has gone diwn in proportion to its perceived military might.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)